Since 1956, the award has been presented to 174 psychologists who have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology leading to the understanding or amelioration of important practical problems. Cohen and Fiske were selected to receive this year's award with Joseph LeDoux of New York University based on their lifetime bodies of work.

Cohen is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, co-director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute with molecular biologist David Tank, and director of the University's Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior. A Princeton faculty member since 1998, Cohen focuses on the mechanisms underlying cognitive control and their disturbance in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. His work has sought to answer the fundamental question of how coordinated, purposeful behavior arises from the distributed activity of many billions of neurons in the brain, to develop hypotheses about the functioning of these systems and to test these hypotheses in empirical studies. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Fiske, also the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, has been at Princeton since 2000. Her research addresses how stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are encouraged or discouraged by social relationships, such as cooperation, competition and power. Most recently, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 2009. She has served as president of the Association for Psychological Science, the Foundation for the Advancement of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. She also is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Cohen and Fiske will be recognized in August in San Diego at the 2010 APA Convention.